


nothing left to burn

by tozier



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Competition, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, would it be a fic about them without it?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 01:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16187669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tozier/pseuds/tozier
Summary: Anne Shirley-Cuthbert has learned a lot of things about the world in her 16 years of living, and she is mighty pleased about all she’s come to know. However, nothing could've ever prepared her for all Gilbert Blythe would come to teach her.





	nothing left to burn

**Author's Note:**

> song in the tin is "your ex-lover is dead" by stars.

Anne Shirley-Cuthbert has learned a lot of things about the world in her 16 years of living, and she is mighty pleased about all she’s come to know.

She’s crafted a List of sorts. It’s a secret List, one she refuses to show anybody, not even Diana, but even if something is a secret, it still exists so long as even one person knows it does. It is a List of all the things she knows to be true about the world. She carries the List with her at all times so as not to run the risk of having anyone happen upon it at home. If it’s always with her, tucked away in the secret pocket she had Marilla sew into her bloomers, then it’s always her secret and her secret alone.

The List thus far reads as follows:

  1. Life is precious and finite, and we are all here for a reason. Adversity can prove to be a friend, instead of an opponent. Accepting it as part of existing will further peacefulness.
  2. No matter how big you think love is, it is always bigger than that. Let this inspire you when you’re feeling small, not terrify.
  3. Feeling too much is a blessing, not a curse, no matter what the people around you may think or say.
  4. Rebelling is important to do, but only if you know exactly what it is you’re rebelling against.
  5. A best friend is such a rare and precious gift; maybe the greatest one there is.
  6. Learning is the next best gift the world has to give. Words are the marrow of life; reading is the breath, and speaking is the body that holds it.
  7. The imagination can lead you anywhere you’d like to go, no matter how trapped you may feel.
  8. Gilbert Blythe is an insurmountable thing; a changeling; a fairy tale creature. There is a lot the world can learn from him.



When she was small, still living with the Hammond's, Anne happened upon a book in their study: Grimms' Fairy Tales. If Mr. Hammond were to know she’d been reading it, he surely would’ve stashed it away on some high-up shelf, and Anne thought that was mighty tragical; books deserve to be read, and then read again. She’s heard tell of a Public Library in Charlottetown, and she thinks that’s a beautiful idea. For a small fee, you can rent a book and care for it like you would a border before giving it back once finished for the next person to love and cherish.

This book, however, was a Hard one. Not hard like how teaching Jerry to read has been, but Hard like handling the vitriol Mr. Hammond displayed when he would get drunk off spirits. There’s something nice she thinks in knowing other people have had it Hard, too, even if those people are all made up. It was nice to board Ruby Gillis when her house caught fire because she was going through a Hard time. It was nice to sit with Gilbert in silence after his father passed away because she knew that particular Hardship well (even though, as she learned, all people have different Hardships, no matter if their titles are the same. She and Gilbert may both be Orphans, but that does not make their Hardships the same. It pains her to know Gilbert Blythe has taught her anything about the world. If anything, she should be teaching him).

Begrudgingly, this didactic lesson inspired her to write out the most recent bullet in her List a few weeks ago, after an arduous debate with herself for even longer beforehand despite knowing nobody but herself would even know of its existence:

  1. No experience is a universal one.



There were otherworldly creatures in this book, ones that are surely thought of as evil insofar as the Bible is concerned. Faeries and hobgoblins and demons galore, but no creature—human nor mythical—was the same. She found herself particularly interested in faeries; living in trees, unable to lie, but still finding clever ways to trick and deceive. Secrets, this book taught her, are much different than lies.

She thinks about writing that down on her List sometimes, but always thinks better of it; it feels too important somehow. Like maybe writing it on paper will threaten the very reality of it.

Anne, admittedly, isn’t very skilled in the art of keeping secrets, so long as she knows a thing is a secret in the first place. However, she is masterful at it when she is keeping the secret from herself. This is why being around Gilbert Blythe is tricky. Gilbert has changed rapidly in the time she’s known him—gone from boy to man and back again, from adversary to mentor and back, from stranger to friend and back. It seems that Gilbert is impossible to truly know.

Which is why the urge to do so is persistent and ever so hungry inside of her.

She has classified this urge as The Thirst for Knowledge. There is no part of her that thinks it’s more than that. Putting a feeling into words is sometimes a betrayal of the self, and the self is the only thing Anne Shirley-Cuthbert really knows about at all, no matter what her List might say.

Presently, she is stood beside Gilbert at the front of the class, a respectable distance between them, one not even Ruby Gillis would be able to comment on. They are the best, most competitive students Miss Stacy has, and their teacher uses this to her advantage sometimes; competition, she says, is the best way to get someone to want to learn. Anne thinks maybe the very act of inclusion has done the trick, but she is keeping this to herself, at least for now; she'd never say anything contrary about wonderful things that come from Miss Stacy’s mouth.

Maths are not Anne’s strong suit. They’re an incredibly unromantic subject; she doesn’t like to think there’s only one answer for every question, and only one right way to arrive at it. A few months ago, right as Summer was ending, before the Harvest, Miss Stacy had asked Anne to come in once a week before class and study Maths with Gilbert when he has his extra lessons. Anne loathes Tuesdays most out of all the days of the week because of this, even more than the days she doesn't go to the schoolhouse at all. Gilbert never makes her feel stupid or inferior because of her inaptitude when it comes to Maths, but it still smarts to seem lesser in front of him.

However, these lessons are currently proving themselves to be a mighty good idea, because she and Gilbert are having a race at the blackboard to see who can finish their Algebra problem first, and Anne is winning. She doesn’t know this for a fact, but she can feel it in the way her arm glides across the board, and how the clamor of their classmates behind them has faded in volume against her ears, a welcome sort of white noise where din usually only serves to overstimulate her.

Anne doesn’t enjoy being forced to make a spectacle of herself. Choosing to is not only enjoyable, it’s downright delicious, but being called on for an answer, or standing in front of a room to deliver an unprepared speech? Atrocious. Miss Stacy very much likes having them debate certain subjects; they’re given a topic, and one side opposes while the other hails its merits. It’s fun to watch, and it’s interesting in theory, but in practice, being impassioned without a script to read from is far scarier than she ever could've imagined; it's so vulnerable.

But this is not Debate, this is Maths, and there is only one right answer to this, one she is incredibly close to reaching. She can see Gilbert falter in the corner of her eyesight, and she smirks to herself as she continues fluidly. _Nearly there,_ she thinks as she kneels down to write the last line of the equation.

The sound of Gilbert placing his chalk in the metal holder beneath them is deafening.

The screams of their classmates and the sounds of them banging their fists against their desks go unheard, as well as Miss Stacy’s insistence that Anne put down her chalk so she can compare them.

“Just a moment, please!” She calls out, furiously scribbling. She can barely read the numbers she’s writing, and knows it’ll be utterly illegible to anyone else, but she needs to try. She _has_ this. She needs this win. Losing in front of everyone (and to _Gilbert Blythe_ of all people) would surely be unimaginable torture.

Miss Stacy’s lovely lavender perfume wafts in the air as her hand cups around Anne’s and gently removes it from the board. Anne stands up, a bit shamefully, to face her. “Anne,” she says gently, “your time is up.”

Anne sighs harshly and slams the chalk down. Even though it’s possible Gilbert messed up his math somehow, she still knows she’s been beaten; Gilbert is _better_ than her at this. She refuses to even look at him as she moves to stand beside her work. The class has taken up a low rumble of palms against wood to create a drumroll as Miss Stacy surveys each of their work with meticulous care. Anne is grateful that at least she’s being given a fair shot against her adversary.

Miss Stacy nods and moves between them to take both their hands in hers. “And the winner is…”

The class’ slapping gets increasingly louder, and Anne feels even more on edge than she did previously. While surveying the class, she accidentally catches eyes with Billy Andrews and finds him squatting on his chair, staring directly at her, as if challenging her to do something uncouth. She almost wants to just to spite him, but looks across the room to find Diana instead. She’s staring at her, too, however, Diana’s smile is filled with nothing but earnest and unbidden affection, one that always infuses Anne with warmth. Diana Barry is like a furnace for Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, cooling the ever-burning embers always ready to catch fire inside her, threatening to tear their town asunder, and setting them instead to a comfortable glow.

The loss hurts a little less when Diana’s expression doesn’t change from the one that always keeps the flames at bay as Miss Stacy lifts Gilbert’s hand high in the air instead of hers. The cheers from the boys are deafening, and she can hear little Miss Tillie Boulter clamoring for justice.

“There must be some mistake!” She cries as Ruby attempts to quiet her, pulling insistently on her sleeve to get her to sit. “I demand a recall!”

“It’s fine,” Anne smiles tightly, gritting her teeth to keep her embarrassed tears at bay, “I concede to Gilbert.”

“No!” Tillie moans, which is really very sweet. Anne makes a mental note to give Tillie the entire scone Marilla always packs for her tomorrow, uncaring of whether or not it will seem rude not to share with all the girls as they usually do.

“Tillie, I should have you know that Anne was incredibly close to completing the problem,” Miss Stacy says, voice soothing as she points to the last line of Anne’s work. “Had Gilbert not sped through it, she most certainly would’ve reached the correct sum. She did her work more roundabout than Gilbert, but meandered her way back to the right answer by the end.” Miss Stacy turns to smile at her, warm and inviting as always. The fire catches spark to think that she could be just as comforting one day. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

“What!?” Tillie cries, which makes Gilbert chuckle lowly.

“It’s an idiom,” Anne rushes to get out before Gilbert can beat her to it. Every victory is important, no matter how small, she thinks. Maybe that would make a good #10 on her List.

“It is at that,” Miss Stacy confirms, filling Anne with a rush of pride. “Tillie, it means that there are a lot of different ways to get a correct answer.”

“Well, congratulations, Miss,” Gilbert says politely, rounding Miss Stacy to stick out his hand for her to shake. “You did good. A very fair fight indeed. I can think of no worthier opponent than you.”

“Neither can I,” Anne admits, far quieter than she might normally considering all eyes are still on them. She never lowers her chin though, still proud even though she probably shouldn’t be considering she didn’t win. She takes Gilbert’s hand to shake and finds a piece of paper neatly folded hidden in the secrecy of his warm palm. He slips it to her with a small nod and a fond smile from underneath his fringe as he backs away. Her stomach swoops and she struggles to smother the flames that lick up her spine, clutching the paper tightly in her fist, feeling it crinkle.

“All right, class, settle down,” Miss Stacy calls, leading Gilbert and Anne by the smalls of their backs to their desks. Anne flops down beside Diana with a chagrined sigh, and looks over at her when she places a warm hand on the top of Anne’s. Her fingers tighten against the note.

“Gilbert was right,” Diana says softly, her voice always comforting like the wind chimes hanging from the barn at Green Gables are against her ears, “you did very, very good.”

"You mean 'well'," Anne corrects quietly, a little miffed she hadn't done so before when Gilbert was the one to use incorrect grammar in the first place. When she turns to Diana and smiles, it doesn’t feel so forced this time. “Thanks, Lancelot.”

Diana steels her expression to the stern one she adopts when they play pretend, “You’re quite welcome, Dear Elaine.”

Anne’s responding giggle nearly drowns Miss Stacy out. “Does anyone have any questions on how Gilbert and Anne arrived to the sum before we break for the day?”

Moody does, of course, and Miss Stacy answers him with a patience Anne hopes she's lucky enough to bequeath from her someday.

When they are finally released, Anne rushes to the back, hoping to avoid any rude comments from the boys, or pitying touches on the shoulder from the girls. Instead, she finds Gilbert waiting to greet her, coat, hat, and scarf already donned.

“May I walk you home?” He asks just as Diana rushes to catch up. She catches Anne’s eyes, her own wide, excited and curious. Anne leaves him hanging for a moment as she considers this and dresses herself. They're far past the days of Ruby becoming tearful over Gilbert showing up to the schoolhouse with anyone besides herself, and while she's glad Ruby has gained some maturity, it does make her own life a bit harder. While she wishes she had a solid reason to deny him the pleasure, she thinks it might not be so bad. If Josie Pye demands to know anything about it, Anne will claim accident, and assure her it was nothing but innocent (which, of course, will be true). Diana will corroborate her story; they can play it as an espionage heist, a secret mission to spare the feelings of their friend and keep her secret from being found out.

The secret feels far bigger than just accepting an invitation for a walk, but putting that into words would mean accepting it as truth, and that absolutely cannot happen. It is not a Secret, capitalized for importance; it is merely something too unimportant to even name.

Wordlessly, Anne walks to the front door as Diana trails uncertainly behind her, unsure if she’s been banished for the afternoon or not, while Gilbert stands in the same place he was, waiting for a reply. Another small victory comes when she has to turn to him slightly, and quietly ask, “Are you coming or not?”

“Didn’t know I was allowed to,” he chuckles, hiking the strap of his bag up to a comfortable place on his shoulder and coming to stand beside her.

Anne ignores him and turns to Diana instead, expression grave as she catches one of her hands with her own free one. “Would you please be sure to walk home with—”

“I had already planned to,” Diana cuts her off, voice hushed, eyes darting to Gilbert every few seconds whereas Anne’s stay resolutely planted on Diana’s fine features. She gives Anne a fierce hug and presses a kiss to both her cheeks, lightning fast the way Josephine taught them the French do. “Til tomorrow,” Diana says to the both of them.

“Til tomorrow,” they both respond, as if their separation seems bigger than just the day. Sometimes, for Anne, it does, still feeling every now and then as if every day she has on the island is numbered. Despite Avonlea being very decidedly her Home now, she still can’t shake the feeling that she’s just a visitor in this beautiful town.

Anne sets off down Lover’s Lane towards the Haunted Wood, and doesn’t look to see if Gilbert’s caught up with her to assure her some plausible deniability if she’s caught. Gilbert doesn’t seem to mind, easily matching her quick strides with his fast-sprouting legs. _Like a weed that boy is,_ Mrs. Lynde said of him a few weeks past. _He sure is,_ Anne replied sourly, _you can’t get rid of him._ Her and Marilla had laughed, as if they were in on some sort of gossip Anne wasn’t privy to. It isn’t like Marilla to keep things from her, especially not since Matthew passed last winter, and the thought that she might be has left her feeling uneasy, like she’s swallowed something rancid and it has since made a hovel inside of her.

“Have you read the note yet?” Gilbert asks after they’ve walked a considerable distance in silence. They’ve just entered the Haunted Wood, and the cover of trees makes her feel watched in a way that is uncanny, considering it usually only supplies safety.

“I haven’t.”

He hums consideringly, and Anne _burns_  knowing his maddening smirk is present without even needing to turn to see it. “It’s an interesting read.”

“I’m not so sure about that, considering it was written by your hand,” Anne snaps, the paper feeling so warm beneath her tightly closed fist, she fears it might catch fire.

“Who said it was?” Anne stops short and gives into the burning curiosity Gilbert always sets alight in her. She unfolds the paper carefully, and finds herself faced with her own handwriting. The List. She flushes intensely, but pays it no mind as she usually does, always so self-conscious about her pale complexion, but too distracted with a flood of anger and embarrassment to notice presently. She presses the paper to her chest, as if to hide it from Gilbert’s eyes, despite the fact that he implied to have already read it.

“It’s _incredibly_ impolite to take things that aren’t yours,” Anne barks, feeling tears burn hot against her eyes. She forces them away, unwilling to cry in front of anyone who might possibly hold it against her, especially if the tears are over someone as utterly _meaningless_ to her as Gilbert Blythe.

“I didn’t take it,” Gilbert says, brows pinching with hurt. _Gilbert is so chivalrous,_ Anne hears Ruby's soft, melodious voice float through her head. She scowls at it. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Anne.”

“Well then, I’m a little unsure as to how it came into your possession, considering I never let it leave my sight.”

“Perhaps you have a hole in your pocket,” he answers, expression evening back out. Anne is grateful for this, as her fingers were feeling itchy with the urge to smooth it out herself.

“Doubtful,” she sniffs, nose pointed high with pride. “Marilla sewed it on herself, and she’s a masterful sewer.”

“Everybody makes mistakes,” he says seriously in the way he always is when saying something with more meaning behind it than he lets on.

“Not Marilla,” she insists, which makes Gilbert crack a smile.

“Okay.” It infuriates Anne sometimes how easily Gilbert gives into Anne’s insistences. Sometimes, the urge to do nothing but argue over something trivial with Gilbert Blythe is so powerful, she has to argue with herself aloud just to quell it. “Regardless, I didn’t steal it from you. I found it on the floor beside my desk, and thought I’d give it a read so I could return it to its rightful owner. How fortuitous that it ended up being you.”

Anne narrows her eyes. She wants to ask why on earth that would ever be fortuitous. She doesn’t.

“How do you even know it’s mine?” She demands instead. The impulse to cry has faded, but the white-hot intensity of her emotions still simmer uncomfortably beneath her skin, ready to overtake her at any moment. The audacity Gilbert Blythe has to force her to feel this much. _Number four,_ she tells herself, using the words as a mantra in an attempt to soothe herself. _Feeling too much is a blessing, not a curse._

“Other than the fact that I’m acquainted with your handwriting?” His content smile is just as maddening as Anne imagined it would be a few minutes ago. Curse her imagination for being as vivid as it is. “It has that certain Anne Shirley-Cuthbert flair. Passionate. Compelling…” His smile turns into something else, something Anne can only describe as _gentle._ “Invested.”

“I…” Anne has always prided herself on never being lost for words. She doesn’t think Gilbert deserves to be the first to render her so.

“Number nine is my personal favorite,” he continues, nodding to the paper still clutched in her shaking hands. She almost wishes it were cold enough for mittens, because despite the fact that she’d never willingly wish Autumn away, it might do something to hide her obvious tremor. A flash of fear goes through her that he’s referencing the one that directly cites his name, but when she looks down, she instead finds that number nine is simply _no experience is a universal one._

She nods, still looking over the paper. It's one of her favorites, too; it’s certainly the one that’s caused her the most personal growth.

“Your way with words is…” He pauses, not as if he himself is lost for words, but is instead choosing them carefully. Anne has the feeling whatever he says next will be very important, and she gets a little lost if Gilbert’s soft gaze while she waits for it. “Mesmerizing,” he finishes eventually, sounding a bit wounded as he does.

“That’s an awfully nice thing to say to a self-proclaimed adversary, Gilbert Blythe,” she breathes, voice slow and wafer-thin as Gilbert takes a step closer. She distantly hears the List rip beneath her iron-tight grasp, but is too distracted by the way the trees suddenly feel like they’re closing in on her to care. She feels surrounded—captured. Ensnared like a fox in a steel trap.

But then Gilbert’s hand reaches for hers, easing her fingers out of their prison with a gentle touch. He takes the slightly battered List in his own hands and begins folding it with deft fingers while maintaining eye contact. “Careful with that,” he says, smile slight, like he knows something the rest of the world doesn’t. _A secret still exists so long as even one person knows it does._ “It could be important to someone.”

“It’s important to _me,”_ she insists, and she wants to sound irritable, but her words come out desperate instead, ripped to shreds. Her skin feels uncomfortably tight against her, like an unfamiliar guest. While she's never enjoyed its appearance, Anne has always felt entirely at home in her own body, the way it twists and moves and holds her upright, and she's furious at Gilbert for making her feel any differently. She has a feeling detonation is imminent, and wants to escape the gaze of Gilbert Blythe as soon as possible, because he is the match that lights the fuse, and it’s impossible to ignore that with him so close.

“You’re not the only one.” Gilbert’s voice is low, barely a murmur, but it still licks against the flames burning her to ash. “The enormity of love _does_ make me feel small. It’s amazing how you quelled that fear with only a few words.”

“Matthew told me once that it’s nice to know someone out there shares our feelings, even if the feelings are borne from different experiences,” she says, and the fire cools a bit with Matthew’s memory so close at hand. A fresh wave of sadness rolls over her, bowling her down like the Lake so often does. Matthew can’t ever be at the forefront of her mind without finding herself with the need to cry, and she hangs her head for a moment to compose herself to make sure she doesn’t. She hates panicking in front of anyone, but especially Gilbert.

“Hey,” he says softly. Anne only realizes he’s still holding her hand when he squeezes it gently. “You’re all right. Just breathe.” She does, matching Gilbert’s deliberately deep breaths. He runs the pad of his thumb over the backs of her knuckles. “Good.” The flames spread. Anne doesn’t know how she never realized that in all the time she’s been fighting with Gilbert, all she was ever really looking for was his praise, and that all the years she’s spent vying against her own self-made prison has been all for naught when the moment Gilbert gives her any direct appreciation, she crumbles like a house of cards.

 _How pathetic,_ she thinks, a grim set to her mouth. She doesn’t want to be so easily affected by some dumb boy. She’s stronger than that. Marilla would surely be disappointed in her if she knew. However, the acknowledgement that this affliction exists at all, even if it only ever remains an internalized understanding, eases the ache somehow, and it makes it all the more easy to meet his gaze once more.

“I think Matthew was right,” Gilbert says after an extended moment spent going adrift in the uncharted waters of her eyes. “It’s always nice to know when somebody shares our feelings.”

It’s frustrating, Anne thinks, how Gilbert seems allergic to saying what he really means. She can gather well enough what he intends for her to pick up from this statement, she’s not daft, but it would make her life so much easier if he simply directly stated how he feels instead of merely implying it. However, the idea that he’s only ever implied any deeper feelings is a queer one indeed; maybe he fears rejection in the same way Anne always has.

It really _is_ nice when somebody shares your feelings.

Anne has been hiding in the hollows of her mind all her life. It’s safer there; she can control her imaginary worlds however she’d like. Sometimes she’s a princess in a tall tower _(“Any dragons around here need slaying?”)_ or a fierce warrior like Joan of Arc _(“Thanks for coming by to help feed the beasts.”),_ but she always finds a way to save herself no matter what peril she concocts for herself to fend off. She has no need for a knight in shining armor.

It’d be so nice to come out of hiding though, even for a moment.

“Gilbert,” she says softly, placing her other hand on his shoulder and leaning up on her toes so they’re at eye level, “I’m going to kiss you now.”

“Are you, now?” He responds, the same challenging little smirk playing across his features, like he barely believes her. The only thing that differs from the usual is the tenderness in his eyes, the plain fondness he has for her he’s never been skilled at hiding. Cole saw it, Diana saw it, and Anne has finally allowed herself to see it, too.

“I am,” she says, so close that the fire in her veins sings with excitement.

How strange to think all this time, this is what she’s wanted, but never allowed herself to even conceive it. For all that Anne prides her hearty imagination, she could’ve never envisioned the _quiet_ that washes over her as their lips touch.

She had been right; _kiss_ is far too small a word for how enormous the feeling is.

Anne Shirley-Cuthbert is always speaking, no matter if she’s alone of not. Sometimes she’s singing, sometimes she’s pretending, escaping, but she is always speaking in some fashion. Words are her weapon of choice, and she prides herself on always knowing the most apt quote for any situation. But the feeling of Gilbert smiling softly against her own mouth as he kisses her back is so all-consuming, she finds herself wishing there were an infinite amount of adjectives in the English language to choose from; none of the ones she knows seem to fully encapsulate the pure intensity of it.

It's almost preternatural—like he's transferring a bit of his changeling magic into her, instilling it deep in her soul with every gentle brush of his lips against hers.

She pulls away with her thumb fitted against the fluttering pulse of his blood in his throat, a soft, quiet hum of contentment leaving her lips, and the List fluttering to the ground as he puts his hand on her waist to steady them both. _Nice,_ she settles on eventually as she opens her eyes and smiles. _This is really, really nice._

As she rocks back down on her heels, the first thing out of her mouth is, “Do you have a quill?”

“Uh,” he struggles, shaking his head slightly as if to clear it. She smiles smugly, proud to have finally rendered The Great Gilbert Blythe speechless. “I-I, yeah, I do.”

“Can I borrow it?” She asks, tilting her head and smiling up at him. She can feel his breath catch in his throat where her hand is still pressed against it, and that action alone feels far more intimate than any kiss they could possibly share, no matter how magical they may be.

“Of course.” Her hand falls as he pulls away to rifle quickly through his bag. “Is a pen all right?”

“More than,” she answers, hand out flat expectantly. He hands it to her and she twirls her finger, urging him to turn his back to her. When he does, with a quirk of his head, eyes narrowed as he smiles, she picks up the List and presses it to his back for a stable surface to write on. She brushes the dirt off onto his cable-knit sweater, and then brushes that to the ground. He shivers beneath her.

“Please stand still,” she admonishes, uncapping the pen and poising it below number 9.

“Sorry,” he says, not sounding very sorry at all, which makes her grin only because he can’t see her. Some things, she thinks, are worth keeping to oneself.

She slowly, carefully, pens the number _10,_ and her smile turns into something sweeter as she writes it down. When she’s finished with her work, admiring how far her penmanship has come, she folds the paper back up and lifts her dress to put it back in the pocket of her bloomers. Gilbert had been right; there is a small hole. She’ll have to ask Marilla to fix that tonight after dinner. She hands the pen back to him over his shoulder, and when he turns back, he has a funny smile on his face, like he’s never seen anything quite like Anne before in his life—like she’s magic, too. Funny how the magical always seem to find one another, she thinks.

“Did you figure out something important?”

She nods, “I did.”

“Care to share with the class?” She holds out her hand for him to take, and when he does, she shrugs with her own maddening little smile. His own only grows at the sight.

“If you’re lucky.”

“Oh, I could never _be_ so lucky,” he insists, and it sounds like only half of a joke.

She tells him because has made a treatise with herself in the writing of number 10, and she feels it’s important to share it. _“Passion is the most honest thing on earth,”_ she recites, and then pulls them further into the forest, knowing she has to get home at some point, or Marilla might send Jerry to come search for her, and she knows she’d never live it down if he found them the way they are, breathless and blushing.

“If I tell you something true right now, will you hold it against me?” Gilbert had cleared his throat before speaking, but it did nothing to hide the breathless nature of his tone. It makes Anne wonder if he agrees with her findings.

“Tell me and we’ll surely find out,” Anne smiles, swinging their joined hands in a large arch. Gilbert tugs at it on a down swing and they slow to a stop. She turns to find him gnawing at his lower lip the same way she does when she’s nervous.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you for a very long time now.” Anne’s brows shoot up beneath her fringe from pure shock. She isn’t sure she could keep her jaw from dropping if she tried with all her might.

“How… how long?”

“Maybe as long as I’ve known you,” he says quietly, a little embarrassed as he tugs on a pulled thread in his sweater and unspools it further. Anne thinks about slapping his hand away, knowing she’s going to have to be the one to fix it, considering all Marilla’s been teaching her about sewing, but she thinks better of it; he’s certainly quite nervous if he’s destroying his own clothes. He and Bash don’t have the means for him to buy wool to make any more.

“Even when I had to cut my hair?” Anne teases, trying to get his mind off his nervousness. She thinks it might’ve worked when he looks up at her with a small smile and drops his hand from his sweater sleeve.

“Even then.”

“What about when I would spy on your lessons with Miss Stacy?”

“You don’t still do that?”

“Not _often!”_ Anne cries, trying to pull her hand away, but his smile blooms into a laugh as he tugs her nearer, refusing to let go now that he’s finally found a way to latch on. It feels like Spring, like she’s the sun and he’s a flower, turning to face her and drink up her warmth. Lots of people tell Anne she’s warm, but she’s never really understood that; if anyone she knows is warm, it’s Diana. Sweet, darling Diana who stayed with her and Marilla at Green Gables in their mourning after Matthew passed for a whole two weeks, even despite insistence otherwise from her parents. It’s nice to think that she could possibly be warm like Diana is. Even with the chill of Winter is in the air, Gilbert makes her feel like Springtime.

Once his laughter dies down, he nods, placating her with the same grace he always has, “Yes, Anne. Even then.”

“And when I upended you with my slate?”

He gruns, “Oh, _especially_ then.”

“Gil!” She shrieks, only admitting to being half-delighted by his cheekiness. She pushes against his chest gently with a closed fist, and he laughs, stumbling at bit before capturing her hand in his to draw her in close, their clasped hands resting between their chests.

What Anne has always craved to draw from life most of all is intimacy, to get as close as she can to people, and hope they don’t turn her away for it. Before Green Gables, she didn’t believe she deserved personal space. It had been taken from her violently so many times by so many people that somewhere down the line, she started to believe she lost her birthright to have space between her and the rest of the world. Emotionally, she wants no barriers; she yearns to drink from the marrow of her kindred spirits and have them drink from her, tangle together until their souls join and they become one. Physically, she knows she has barriers. She wouldn’t be able to put them into words for anyone, but she can always pinpoint the moment they’re crossed.

Gilbert has never even toed that barrier Marilla and Matthew helped her rebuild. Even when he would tug on her pigtails, beg at her heels for scraps of attention, she never felt anything but _fire._ The desire to get him as close as possible was so strong, she _had_ to push him away, or else she might pull him too close and burn him alive. In Anne’s experience, physical contact has only ever been a burden. She’d much rather love people with her words rather than her hands.

But Gilbert steals her words right out from under her, makes speaking obsolete in the face of _feeling._ All she is left with is her hands, so she tries to speak with them instead. Drawing her fingertips across the sensitive skin of his palms, pressing her thumb into his pulse thundering beneath his wrist, tangling their fingers together like lovers do. A nice thought, that she and Gilbert are lovers. It feels monumentally important that her hands say the correct words right now.

She looks up to check and make sure they are, and finds him looking at her. It seems he’s been doing so for a long while without her noticing, and like always, he doesn’t look away when she catches his eye; he just smiles, the unfurling of rose petals, a long, slow blossoming. It seems he’s looking at her now simply because he can—because they are alone, and there is nobody nearby to tell him he can’t. Anne has no need to anymore. The forest suddenly doesn’t feel so oppressive, especially considering it’s giving them permission to love. She shifts and dead leaves crunch beneath her feet. She smiles down at them, giggling quietly, and privately thanks them for creating such holiness.

Eventually, he speaks again, continuing the thread of conversation Anne has long since forgotten the beginning of. She isn’t sure it matters. Not when he says, “I would love you no matter what you choose to be,” with that same half-smile he always has around her, as if he’s keeping a secret from the world; now, however, Anne is in on it, too.

“You… love me?” She chokes out. It feels emotionally identical to finding out Diana loved her all those years ago. She’s bowled over by the shock of it, stumbling a bit in his hold.

She knows he means it in a romantical sort of way (or at least, she hopes he does), but all love is romantical in some fashion to Anne. The love she has for Matthew, and Cole, and Diana, and Jerry, and Miss Stacy; all of them with different titles and boundaries related to them _(father; soulmate; bosom friend; brother; hero),_ but all kindred spirits just the same. All soulmates. Love will forever be a romantic notion to Anne; she can find no way to dissever the enormity of love with the sweeping intensity of romance—nor does she want to. All love is big, and deserves to be felt with every inch of the soul, no matter what the relationship is defined as.

She knows it should be different than the first time Matthew said he loved her, or Diana, or Cole, but it isn’t. It’s just as surprising every time that Anne has managed to convince these incredible souls to love her back, and to entangle themselves with hers.

“I do,” he says, like it should be obvious by now. The Truth is sometimes hard to believe until it’s stated plainly, and even then, sometimes it still feels impossible. “Most devotedly.”

“That’s…” She struggles to find the right word; none feel big or important enough for this moment, this hallowed ground. They should erect a place of worship right here where they stand—build it from tree branches and leaves and tree trunks the same way Anne created their sacred, newly reconstructed clubhouse. She's never taken Gilbert there, but she thinks he might understand the holiness about these Woods regardless; he _is_ a kindred spirit after all. “Incredible.”

“Is it so hard to believe? You’re quite the lovable creature,” Gilbert says, speaking to her softly the way Anne does with her fox, like the words they speak and the creatures they’re speaking to deserve the utmost sacrality. “You’re extraordinary, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert.”

Anne has never believed herself to be an extraordinary person at all: she’s plain-looking, sticks out in all the wrong ways for all the wrong reasons, and her intelligence is certainly nothing to write home about. But the way Gilbert says it—the same way she says her prayers at night, tone hushed and private—makes her _want_ to believe it. She thinks perhaps she could learn to, the way she’s had to learn everything else in life. She wasn’t gifted with the ability to love herself by birth, but nobody can speak until they learn how to. Perhaps self-love is just like any other vocation, and requires militant practice until it is ingrained—an unconscious habit.

How extraordinary to think maybe she could believe herself to be as important as the bees and the trees one day. How extraordinary to think somebody already believes that to be true, and has the bravery to tell her so. It’s very hard, she’s found, to say something True, but real bravery comes forth when one’s voice is shaking.

“You are, too, Gilbert Blythe,” and _that’s_ something she can say with most assured honesty is an undeniable fact of this world. She meant it when she said Gilbert is insurmountable—she doesn’t think there will ever be enough words to describe everything Gilbert is, even if she learned a hundred different languages. Bash has been teaching them bits and pieces of Spanish and Trinidadian Creole, and it’s interesting to find words in English that don’t translate to either of those languages, and vice versa.

Despite this, she knows she’ll struggle to grip the right words that describe Gilbert. She thinks maybe they could use their own List.

In her head, she begins to construct one—a _real_ one, nixing the words she thinks of compulsively and are unfounded opinions, barely based in fact, like _obnoxious_ and  _insufferable._ She works hard to make this List as truthful as the one that came before it.

  1. Extraordinary
  2. Magical
  3. Ambitious
  4. Empathetic
  5. Competitive
  6. Safe



She has to cut herself off with that (being sure to underline it heavily in her head before putting down her mental quill), knowing she’s retreated too far into her head. This is an issue for her now that she’s found a safe place—escaping the world, even when there’s no reason to hide from it. There has never been any reason to conceal herself Gilbert Blythe; he is, after all, safe.

To think, a boy she’s secretly coveted for so long underneath a mask of disdain believes her to be extraordinary. She remembers telling Diana, Ruby and Minnie May about how she wants to be desired for her wit over her looks. It’d be nice, perhaps, if Gilbert viewed her as attractive (she’s too vain to admit otherwise), but the fact that he considers her as a lover based on far more than that is astonishing.

Looks are easy to change; chopping off all her hair, wrapping a bow around her head, and walking into a room filled with judgmental peers taught her that lesson well. But who a person is at their core? Anne likes to believe that’s impossible to ever fully alter. It’s comforting to know people's absolutes: Ruby will always be sensitive; Josie will always be insecure; Cole will always be restrained; Diana will always be palliative; Marilla will always be headstrong; and Gilbert… Well, Gilbert is a changeling. The knowledge in itself that Gilbert is a kaleidoscopic wealth of ever-changing thoughts and feelings and emotions and desires is comfort enough.

But while other traits have come and gone, the one thing Gilbert has never lost in all the time Anne’s known him is his desire to know her.

And while there’s still so many hardships left to face in the real world, she thinks maybe they can hide for a few more moments in the sanctity they’ve created within the safety of the Haunted Wood. There’s so many questions clawing at her throat, so much still left unanswered. She continues to  _burn_ with so much, she feels overwhelmed by it; that, she thinks, might be the one forever unchanging thing about _her._ But she tries to allow the knowledge that somebody shares her feelings to be enough for now.

When she arrives back home to Green Gables, she already knows the first thing she’ll do is remove the List from where she kept a close hold against it on the walk back, and write out number eleven. She still has so much left to learn—about herself, about Gilbert, about loving and living and being—and that in itself is the most comforting thing she knows about the world.

  1. Be content with what you’ve been given; it is enough.



**Author's Note:**

> literally could not even begin to vouch for this considering i've been manic for about a month, so quality? totally justifiable to speculate on.
> 
> regardless, here's [other places to find me](http://rebecca.carrd.co) if you wanted to say hi! and here's the [tumblr post](https://rebetzel.tumblr.com/post/178729298541/nothing-left-to-burn-tozier-anne-with-an-e), if that's where you hang your hat.


End file.
